By Ivor Markman
Nestled in the rolling Cowie Valley, on the R63 between Adelaide and Bedford in the Eastern Cape, is one of those beautiful old history-filled settler farms, Primeston.
Bubbly Debbie Girdwood, a retired Bedford teacher and keen gardener, runs a bed and breakfast establishment on the farm with her husband David.
The original farmhouse was built by an English immigrant, Edward “Ted” King and his wife, Mary, in the 1880s.
Initially they farmed with sheep, cattle and a few goats.
The original house, with its bull-nose roofed verandah enclosed with lattice work, was altered in the 1950s Kathleen King when added gables and two wings.
Having lunch in the garden under the shady trees, sipping a glass of wine and surrounded by hundreds of blooming roses was an experience only few get to enjoy.
Debbie chatted about her garden while the birds chirped away in the wide variety of foliage.
When she arrived at the old house, the garden was rather ordinary.
“I always thought this was a very beautiful setting and that the house was very lovely,” she said.
“Kathleen King, the previous owner, was very old. When you become elderly its very difficult to cope with a garden this size, and there weren't any plants left.
“I've been a gardener since I was about three or four.
"My grandmother gardened and encouraged me to plant things and grow seeds,” said Debbie.
PRIMESTON RESIDENCE: The beautiful garden in front of the farmhouse was once a barren piece of land, but through diligent attention to detail Kathleen King transformed it into a lush green landscape in the 1950s.
ORIGINAL HOUSE: The family posed on the the verahdah of the house before the gables and colums were added to the front facade.
CHANGED SCENE: Luscious roses bushes now grow where the three women are standing to the left in the old photo above.
GARDEN NYMPH: Debbie Girdwood placed this statue amongst some creeping ivy on the edge of the garden.
Her garden flourished until the time she went back to teaching, a profession that deprives one of time to fiddle around.
Shortly after the district experienced a dreadful drought and her garden was annihilated.
“The birds in the forest were coming out and trying desperately to find seeds of any kind,” she said.
“Conditions we have here are particularly harsh.
"I didn't understand any of that, coming from where you can grow gardens easily. This was a real challenge.
"The water on the farm is brak and incredibly harsh. Alfalfa is abundant and also the soil is clay.
“You can't use salty manure and things like that because it burns the flowers and plants. I didn't know that before.
"There I was happily putting on horse manure and the salt in the manure was far too potent,” she said.
"I put the roses in a while ago and then I really did the beds.
“I use organic fertiliser as much as possible. I feed my roses once a month, otherwise they don't flourish," she said.
LORD MAYOR OF LONDON: A few years ago the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Gavin Arthur, left, brought a group of English gardeners to Bedford for the annual garden festival. Debbie Girdwood, centre, provided a lunch picnic for the group at Primeston. Sir Gavin was born in the Bedford area.
“I love roses. My mother loved roses.
"I think everyone loves roses but I found that the ordinary old iceberg, which I adore, works well here.
"The other two roses which also grow incredibly well, apart from our heritage roses, are Little Pink Hedge and Little Red Hedge.
“Our extreme temperatures make this particular area very difficult.
"It can go to minus eight with black frosts and white frosts every day.
"In summer it heats up to 40 degrees and above which means that you really have difficult conditions to garden with.
“It's dry. We have very much less rainfall than our neighbours in the Cowie valley," she said.
Debbie first of all tried to learn from people who gardened with brak water.
She learnt what she could or could not grow.
“I found a lot of indigenous things did OK, specially agapanthus. They love it here.
"So do tough things like oleander, which are now forbidden, and roses will grow if you've got good seasons.
"You must water them from underneath with buckets or hose-pipes, but you must not spray them at all, because if you spray with brak water, it gets a white deposit on the leaves and dies,” she said.
“In the beginning I never treated the soil before planting, so I lost a fortune of plants because of that.
"Now I mulch and mulch until I'm blue in the face.
ROSE LOVER: Debbie Girdwood with the love of her life.
“I decided the garden was too uninteresting, lawns everywhere and nothing to break them.
So three years ago she planted large squares of vinka (periwinkle) on the top lawn and installed a central fountain with a statue.
I planted another 150 trees and shrubs in the garden, all different sorts of plants that would grow into shrubby tree things, but not the obviously very old enormous trees, they were here,” she said.
TEXT: Copyright Ivor Markman 2013
BROKEN EXPANCE: The large lawn outside the house is broken by a low wall and beds of white and pink roses.
VISUAL CENTREPIECE: A central fountain with statue was installed in the front garden.
BRONZE CRANE: Debbie Girdwood introduced a new species of bird to her garden.
ROSE HEDGE: A magnificent hedge of roses at Primeston.